Grant to help C.O. first responders communicate

On the 13th anniversary of America’s worst terror attack — which also showed numerous first responder agencies’ radios could not communicate with each other — Deschutes County said it received a federal grant to help tackle that issue locally.

In July, the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office applied for a Homeland Security (State Homeland Security Program) grant, said Sgt. Nathan Garibay, emergency services manager.

A week ago, he said, the sheriff’s office was notified of a $207,563 award for interoperable communications equipment.

The funds from this program are provided by the Department of Homeland Security through the Oregon Office of Emergency Management.

For fiscal year 2014, there was just over $3 million dedicated to local units of government throughout the state, which are applied for through a competitive process.

According to OEM, they received applications from 25 jurisdictions this year representing 79 projects, requesting a total of more than $7 million

A grant review committee and OEM’s management team, after careful review and deliberation, are funding 49 projects totaling $3,069,600.

The purpose of the State Homeland Security Program is to address the identified planning, organization, equipment, training, and exercise needs to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from acts of terrorism and other catastrophic events.

In the spirit of this program, the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office applied for funding to provide modern multi-band portable radios for first responder agencies throughout Deschutes and Crook counties, Garibay said.

These radios will function on multiple systems throughout the tri-county area, allowing communications during mutual aid or multi-jurisdictional events.

The radios will also be compatible with an expected future regional radio network, which has the potential to decrease costs associated with that project, he added.

The 17 agencies to receive radios include:

Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office
Deschutes County Road Department
Bend Fire Department
Bend Public Works
Redmond Fire and Rescue
Redmond Public Works
Crooked River Ranch Fire and Rescue
Black Butte Ranch Fire Department
Black Butte Ranch Police
Sisters/Camp Sherman Fire Department
Cloverdale Fire District
Sunriver Fire Department
Sunriver Police Department
La Pine Rural Fire Protection District
Crook County Sheriff’s Office
Crook County Road Department
Crook County Fire and Rescue

Garibay acknowledged to NewsChannel 21 that while the 17 agencies involved have hundreds of radios, the number of new ones the grant will fund are “kind of a drop in the bucket,” but will help to replace some that are “well over 15 years old.”

“We’ve got our money’s worth out of our portable, mobile radios,” he said.

The submitted request was for $276,000 to pay for 50 radios, so with the request partially granted, they are “evaluating different products to get the best possible value” and hopefully still purchase close to that many. He noted they had based the prices listed on individual radio costs and they could benefit from a volume discount.

Asked why Jefferson County was not also on the list, Garibay said, “They were wrapping up another project and wanted to finish that project before they partnered with us. Maybe next year.”

The radios used now do have trunking capability, but the newer technology will support more systems and provide multi-band capability for folks out on incidents.

“We have two 800-megahertz trunking systems, as well as several VHF fire frequencies,” Garibay said. “Each one of those systems have their own characteristics.”

The newer radios will be of special benefit to supervisors and managers responding to incidents, so they can use the frequency that works best, he said.

Cellphones can help on one-to-one communication, but Garibay said that’s “not always efficient,” especially on tactical situations. And using public scanner frequencies can be a challenge, when the people in the situation can also be listening in.

As for the new regional radio system, Garibay said they are through the first phase, a needs assessment, but when it comes to moving on to a new system, “we’re still a few years out.”